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II EDITION The invisible, the common and the magical
2016-2020
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G R I G R I P I X E L
Espacio Vecinal Arganzuela MADRID 2017
From October 2 to 15, 2017 in Medialab Prado and in the Espacio Vecinal de Arganzuela.
The team of guests: Bay Dam from Senegal, Ismael Essome from Cameroon, Mané Ndeye from Senegal , Aderemi Adegbite from Nigeria and Afate Gnikou from Togo. On Monday, October 2, 2017, the II Edition of Grigri Pixel started in Madrid. The African initiatives, the local EVA group and the program of activities that would take place during the following days were presented at Medialab Prado: the construction workshop, the video-mapping workshop with the AV Floss team; the seminar on "The invisible, the common and the magical"; the “Cook your Grigri” workshop with the Cocinar Madrid collective and the 3D printer construction workshop based on recycled computer material with Afate.
After the presentation they began a series of workshops conducted by each of the four African guests. Each session took up the results of the previous workshop and among all the parameters that the grigri design would meet were defined. In addition, each workshop followed the same structure: it served, at first, to learn more about each of the invited African experiences and their local context, and then to apply the lessons learned from these experiences to the EVA context. Each of these possible applications would address a different dimension of the grigri: the first one, facilitated by Mané, would deal with the CONCEPT of the grigri around food; the second, facilitated by Afate, would ask about the FORMALIZATION of the grigri from the ideas that emerged from the previous workshop; the third workshop, led by Ismael, would review the SUSTAINABILITY of the grigri's formal proposals and their connection with the neighborhood space; and the fourth, led by Aderemi, would try to see how the grigri could connect with the EVA and Arganzuela neighborhood COMMUNITY.
2016-2020
GRIGRI PIXEL
IMAGES:
Previous page: A moment during the final party in the Vado de Sta. Catalina, next to EVA. This page (up): Afate Gnikou with one of the working groups during the initial sessions. This page (down): Ismael Essome during the manufacture of the grigri.
The first three days were dedicated then to develop these four iterations of the possible grigri. Through each workshop, we were devising, concretizing and deciding collectively what the protective amulet for EVA should be. The main challenge was how to connect all the proposals to each other in a coherent way, towards the same purpose.
The Grigri that we built for EVA tells us about the past, about food and that old market of fruits and vegetables that now partially occupies EVA; it is installed in the present, it makes a wink to the activities that EVA carries out every week around mobility and bicycles; and it is projected towards a future desire to open up to the neighborhood, to welcome other neighborhoods of Arganzuela and to continue growing as a project.
2016-2020
G R I G R I P I X E L
IMAGES:
This page (up): Mane Ndèye preparing a mafe in EVA during the “Cook your grigri” workshop. This page (down): Last day of manufacture of the grigri in the courtyard of Medialab Prado. Next page: Intervention of Marina Garcés during the seminar held at Intermediae.
On Saturday, October 14, the results of the work were presented. The EVA grigri is an amulet that protects us and takes care of the common spaces. It is a magical object and also a useful object that helps a group of people to cook together. It only works well if several people agree and deploy it among all. The EVA grigri can also move, move and exit procession, with the help and push of others. For the magic of the EVA grigri to be activated, one must communicate, listen and try to understand each other. He needs the generosity and openness that allows him to enter and welcome others. The EVA grigri is done with the will and desire to do with others. He has a lot of commitment, learning and mutual trust. The grigri also serves to congregate and celebrate, to meet and "be" with others.
2016-2020
GRIGRI PIXEL
In the seminar "The invisible, the common and the magical" the invited speakers - Marina Garcés, Paz Núñez, Simon Njami, and Abu Ali - reflected, from their respective experiences, on how to live together, from the differences, in urban common spaces and the role played by the symbolic, the magical and the invisible in the creation of common imaginary. The seminar functioned as a space to think and debate publicly about what are some of the practices, gestures, looks and everyday knowledge that, both from one place and the other, and crossed with each other, could help us build urban meeting spaces for live together in diversity.
2016-2020
G R I G R I P I X E L
Taula Eix Pere IV BARCELONA 2017
From November 2 to 12, 2017 in Hangar and in the Passatge Trullàs.
During the II Edition of 2017 we were invited to conduct a production workshop in Hangar, in the Poblenou of Barcelona in collaboration with the Taula Eix Pere IV, neighborhood association. The magic of Grigri lies in the fact of sharing with others a process of collaborative imagination, creation and construction. In that collaboration, knowledge, ways of doing and visions are exchanged about the city, its common spaces and what it is that we believe takes care of and protects us as inhabitants of those spaces. But for that exchange to take place, as Simon Njami said during his visit to the Madrid seminar, there is a need for recognition of the other: only when we recognize others as equals, as one, can we welcome and apprehend all that can offer us And vice versa. At that moment is when the magic of Grigri begins to activate. Therefore, although the construction workshop began on November 2 in Hangar, in reality, the Grigri was launched almost a year earlier, with the first conversations we had with the neighbors of the Taula del Eix Pere IV to explore the possibilities of collaboration
From these previous conversations, from the participation in numerous assemblies and meetings with neighbors, from listening to the analysis that the Taula had previously made about the neighborhood, the first proposals emerged: the Grigri would go to the Trullàs Passage, a public space in the Pallars crossing with Pere IV that, after long claims and neighborhood struggles, was moderately conditioned by the City Council so that the surrounding neighbors would energize it. Twice a year, coinciding with the neighborhood parties, the Bogatell Neighborhood and Neighborhood Association organized the neighborhood parties there.
2016-2020
GRIGRI PIXEL
IMAGES:
Previous page: Preparing the grigris for the procession from Hangar to the Passatge Trullàs. This page (up): A moment during the manufacture of solar panels with Gabriela, Yaiza, Dame and Adrián. This page (down): One of the work teams doing carpentry work to assemble one of the grigris.
The group of participants was made up of people of different ages and training profiles although architecture and design predominated.
Also among the participants were neighbors from the neighborhood, around the passage, which helped the grigri design and construction process to be done in a localized manner and to respond to the reality of the context.
Also, the participation of three people of Senegalese origin, two of them members of the Diomcoop cooperative, dedicated to commercial activities, facilitated this exchange of knowledge and imaginary with the African continent that the project seeks. This was reinforced by the work of the guest makers, Zaineb El Fasiki, from Morocco; and Modou Ngom, from Senegal.
2016-2020
G R I G R I P I X E L
IMAGES:
This page (up): The grigris about to finish with the assembly and painting work. This page (down): The grigris take to the streets as an element of play during a neighborhood meeting at the Passatge. Next page: Pilgrimage or procession of the grigris from Hangar to be taken to their final destination in the Passatge Trullàs.
In the initial days of the workshop, the group of participants, divided into four teams, had to design their bank proposals, with their particular functionalities.
From these initial debates, four proposals came out: a sunbed; a bench of two, to sit or lie face to face; a bench with holes and perforations, so that children can go through it and play inside its structure; and a bench divided into two whose parts could work together, like a podium at different levels, or separate.
There was also the possibility of incorporating a solar panel to each bench and thus feeding with solar energy some strips of colored LED lights that would illuminate the banks.
2016-2020
GRIGRI PIXEL
Towards 12h the final day of the workshop begins the "pilgrimage" of the grigris that, marching in procession, will bring the luck and protection of the amulets towards the Trullàs passage.
There, a meal prepared by the Union of Street Vendors awaits us to share with the neighbors and with all the people who came to celebrate the arrival of the grigris. We are accompanied by neighbors of the Taula del Eix Pere IV and the neighborhood, Santi de EVA (Arganzuela Neighborhood Space) coming from Madrid, friends and classmates of the participants ... We eat and chat with others while we lie down, sit and play in / with the grigris .
